updated 12:05 pm EST, Wed November 29, 2006

AMD Quad FX Platform

Chip developer AMD will announce its Quad FX platform and related processors today, according to a report by Japan's Impress. Previously known as 4X4, the architecture uses a variant of NVIDIA's nForce 680 chipset to allow both two dual-core processors and as many as four NVIDIA-based graphics cards in a single system. The former was an option previously limited only to more expensive, workstation-grade Opteron systems and promises an extreme level of parallelism dubbed "mega tasking," according to NVIDIA. In a demonstration to the Japanese press, a quad-core, quad-GPU testbed was able to process two 3D games and two HD video streams simultaneously.

AMD will accordingly launch a new line of flagship gaming CPUs today, Impress writes. Ranging from 2.6GHz to 3GHz, the new dual-core processors are based on Opteron designs but will be much less costly to run for home gamers, requiring only standard DDR2 memory and a relatively inexpensive nForce 680a mainboard. AMD is expected to price the chips themselves well below its own Opterons, with prices set at $599 (2.6GHz), $799 (2.8GHz), and $999 (3GHz) versus the $1,099 price of a 2.8GHz Opteron 2200. Availability has not been confirmed.